How Psychodrama Therapy Works to Treat Trauma and Addiction

Jul 2019 How Psychodrama Therapy Works to Treat Trauma and Addiction

Addiction has many roots. The causes of your addiction likely vary compared to what led someone else to engage in substance abuse for the first time. For many people, psychodrama therapy in drug rehab helps work through these root issues to bring healing and recovery. Learn more about how psychodrama therapy works and where to receive this treatment for your own drug addiction recovery.

How Psychodrama Therapy Works

Psychodrama therapy uses role play and guided drama to work through your past traumatic experiences and other difficult events such as addiction. Your therapist guides you through this therapy in the group setting, among your peers in treatment. So you work together to see your conflicts, emotional problems, and other struggles more clearly.

But more importantly, what does this therapy look like? How does your psychodrama therapy program in Palm Springs, CA work?

In your psychodrama session, you reenact scenes from your past experiences, dreams, or situations. You sometimes also reenact potential events of the future to prepare for them. Members of your peer group sometimes play roles alongside you. At other times, peers watch the psychodrama to provide support and feedback about core issues.

Psychodrama sessions focus on one individual’s needs, usually through three phases. Those phases include warm-up, action, and sharing. The warm-up builds trust in the group before you start sharing feelings through your role playing. Action is the role play, in which you and your peers gain a clear view of events, challenges, and also possibilities.

Benefits of Using Psychodrama Therapy in Addiction Rehab

In addiction treatment, you have many strong emotions and feelings to work through. Especially the ones you have long hidden from through substance abuse. So, psychodrama helps you work through these feelings productively through body actions, emotions, and thoughts. In your psychodrama sessions, you work on what troubles you most, such as in your relationships, social interactions, emotions, past trauma, or addiction.

If you suffer a co-occurring mental health problem like an eating, personality, or mood disorder, psychodrama also proves useful for dealing with those issues. Among members of your group, you build trust and also safely communicate your life challenges to rally support in your journey to recovery.

Psychodrama therapy expands on talk therapy by also providing real-time action based on your issues. You work through those issues, gain new insights about them, and then develop new life skills in your activity. These sessions also help you in specific life goals, such as:

  • Overcoming grief
  • Communicating with others
  • Building relationships
  • Building self-confidence
  • Learning life skills
  • Expressing your feelings
  • Finding new ways of thinking

Psychodrama Therapy for Addiction in Palm Springs, CA

In your addiction treatment in Palm Springs, CA, psychodrama is one tool of many therapies and treatment methods. You and your peers support each other as you struggle through challenges and learn new skills for a better life.

Other programs and therapies important to your recovery include:

To learn more about how psychodrama therapy works, as well as trauma therapy and other methods used for recovery from addiction and your past problems, call Phoenix Rising in Palm Springs at 8552328211.